Sebi, French market regulator in pact

Indian market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India has entered into an agreement with its French counterpart AMF to understand each other's regulatory regime and share information to bring about greater transparency in the capital markets of the two countries.

Sebi signed the agreement with Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) for mutual regulatory understanding and exchange of information as well as an annual cooperation programme, an official release said.

"The increased cooperation between the AMF and Sebi is significant in the context of the enhanced presence of emerging markets in an increasingly globalised world," Sebi Chairman M Damodaran said.

"This would enable greater focus on investor protection in a disclosure-based global regime as also enable greater cooperation of the industry in the two jurisdictions to promote capital formation," he said.

The agreement follows a similar arrangement that the domestic market regulator entered into with the US SEC in early January. AMF Chairman Michael Prada said, "As we see a speeding up of cross-border activities in securities markets, close and confident cooperation between securities regulators is a key component of market integrity and efficiency."

The agreement with AMF aims at improved cooperation between the two regulators in cross border securities enforcement matters. The chairs of AMF SEC are the Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively of the Technical Committee of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, while Damodaran is the Chairman of the Emerging Markets Committee.